Wendy's misses across the board and guides lower

Wendy's missed on both the top and bottom lines in the third quarter, as hurricanes hurt sales in Florida and Texas.

The company lowered its profit forecast to a range of $0.43 to $0.45 per share for the full year from its previous forecast of $0.45 to $0.47.

Shares are down more than 6% ahead of Wednesday's opening bell

(Reuters) - Wendy's Co reported lower-than-expected third-quarter profit and sales on Wednesday as hurricanes curtailed traffic at restaurants in Florida and Texas, leading the burger chain to cut its full-year earnings forecast.

The company's shares fell 6.4 percent to $13.80 before the bell on Wednesday.

Wendy's has the highest concentration of stores in Florida and Texas, which were slammed by hurricanes Irma and Harvey during the quarter, hurting same-store sales in North America by 30 to 40 basis points.

The Dublin, Ohio-based company trimmed its profit forecast to a range of 43 cents to 45 cents per share for the full year from its previous forecast of 45 cents to 47 cents.

Wendy's also trimmed the higher end of its North American comparable-store sales for the year to 2 percent to 2.5 percent from its previous range of 2 percent to 3 percent.

For the quarter ended Oct. 1, same-restaurant sales in North America rose 2 percent. Analysts on average were expecting a 2.4 percent rise, according to research firm Consensus Metrix.

Excluding some items, the company earned 9 cents per share, missing analysts' average estimate of 12 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net income fell to $14.3 million, or 6 cents per share, from $48.9 million, or 18 cents per share, in the quarter ended Oct. 1, in part due to higher commodity costs and tax rate.

Revenue fell 15.4 percent to $308 million, mainly from the company selling 249 restaurants to franchisees. (Reporting by Uday Sampath Kumar and Karina Dsouza in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)